Kelty Kangaroo Baby Carrier

Our Kangaroo Pack made the difference between a good summer and frustration last year. When our first baby was born, we had a hand-me-down front pack (manufacturer's name mercifully lost in oblivion) which was absolute torture to wear for more than a few minutes. With all the weight resting on my shoulders, it was a perfect illustration of how not to carry a pack. So when son #2 was due at the beginning of the hiking season, I insisted we find a front-pack that would be usable for significant dayhikes. What we found was the Kelty Kangaroo, and the dayhikes became a glorious reality. We did find that we needed to trade packs about every hour (we were also carrying a toddler in a backpack), as carrying the front pack much longer than that could cause a sore back. Carrying the backpack instead helped surprisingly with this (for a great pack to graduate to, check out the Madden Caravan,which I have also reviewed).

How they do it
The Kangaroo is about as comfortable as you can get for carrying 8-15 lbs. hanging off your belly, which is not to say I didn't notice it. Kelty has succeeded reasonably well in living up to their claim that the harness transfers the weight to the hips, rather than the shoulders (it took some experimenting to get it adjusted right to do this, which might have been easier had it come with instructions--which I suspect was the fault of the retailer, not of Kelty). The baby is securely wrapped in the carrier, you put on the harness like a vest, and then buckle the two together. It's not intuitive, but it does work. Once I got the hang of it I found it easy to put him on and off, and the carrier part made a clean and padded place for him to lie when we were stopped and I wanted him off my chest, as it were. The seat is held around the baby with both velcro and buckles; both it and the connection to the harness seem completely solid.

Features
The pack harness has a couple of pockets for keys and a bottle. The latter is unfortunately too small for a water bottle, which seems like an oversight (see my argument for breastfeeding as the best way to take your baby on adventures. . . ). There is also an outer pouch which attaches with velcro and is big enough for a diaper or two and some wipes, and what Kelty calls a "handwarmer," a slot between the baby and the outer pouch where you can put your hands. That can not only keep your hands warm, but stabilize the baby a bit when you are hiking quickly or on rough ground.

Finally, there is a "privacy cover" which works reasonably well to keep sun and wind, even a light rain, off the baby's face. In theory you can use this to provide privacy while nursing the baby, but I couldn't position him in any way that would make this possible (the nursing, let alone the privacy).

Minor concerns
Our main concern with this pack was about over-heating in hot weather (us and the baby). The pack is pretty well padded (i.e. insulated), which means not well ventilated. Do watch out for this, as well as for cold extremities (arms and legs stick out) in cold weather. On one damp and windy hike, I found that I could zip my parka around both of us, which solved the problem nicely. I think we're pretty much stuck with the hot-weather problem.

As you reach the upper end of the baby's time in the front-pack, it also becomes something of a drawback that you can't turn him around to face out (in the early months, he wants to snuggle up to you anyway). But we found that by the time this was a real issue we were ready to move him to the backpack (a much better way to carry a weight), which we did as soon as he was able to support his head at all well, at about 4 1/2 months.

Update 2002
I have been reading more recent reviews of this carrier and conclude that they have upgraded the Kangaroo so that you can carry your baby forward or backward. That would pretty well take care of my only complaint.


So buy it
My recommendation is to buy it if you plan on carrying the baby far before he or she is old enough for a back carrier. I haven't tried selling it yet, but the resale or hand-me-down value should be high; ours looks essentially unused after 4 months of nearly daily use for errands and short walks, as well as several longer hikes.